The inventive concept relates to electro-wetting display devices and, more particularly, to electro-wetting display devices with improved electro-optical characteristic.
Electro-wetting display devices are attractive in industry because of excellent brightness, excellent contrast ratio, and low power consumption thereof. The electro-wetting display device includes two substrates and an electro-wetting element disposed between the two substrates. The electro-wetting element may reversibly control transmission and reflection of external light by an electric field generated between the substrates. The electro-wetting element may include a conductive fluid having a polar group and high transmission and colored nonpolar oil.
If the electric field is applied to the electro-wetting display device, the colored nonpolar oil disposed on a back substrate may contract aside or be divided into small particles and/or drops, the high transmission conductive fluid disposed on a front substrate may be in contact with a hydrophobic insulator. Thus, when light is irradiated to the front substrate, the light may pass through the high transmission conductive fluid, so as to be colorless. Additionally, the light may be reflected by a reflection plate disposed at a back side of the electro-wetting display device, so that the light may have a color. On the contrary, if the electric field is not applied to the electrode-wetting display device, the colored nonpolar oil may be in contact with the hydrophobic insulator. In this case, when the light is irradiated to the front substrate, the light may be reflected by the colored nonpolar oil, so that the electro-wetting display may be in color.
When the electric field is not applied to the electrode-wetting display device, the light irradiated to the front substrate may pass through the high transmission conductive fluid and then be reflected by the colored nonpolar oil disposed on the back substrate. The reflected light may be absorbed into the high transmission conductive fluid. Thus, a proceeding direction of the reflected light may be refracted, and crosstalk of the reflected light may occur in a boundary between pixels. As a result, resolution of an image and a color reproduction range may be reduced.